Refinishing

Just finished my 762 conversion and believe that a refinishing is in order now. Been looking at several different products Cerakote, Durakote, Alumacote, etc and also bluing too......what do ya'll think is a better product/finish and why?

Just a fyi too, I am not thinking about doing a camo scheme or anything snazzy just a black type of finish.

I have used Gunkote "AK-Black" with a $15 harbor freight airbrush. Degrease, blast it, degrease it, park it, degrease it and then warm the parts to about 115degrees F and spray a light coat. Heat in oven to 350F for an hour and then go back and add another coat if necessary. Turns out nice, although it is a bit of work. Did I mention degrease...

Another option is powdercoat. I tried pc with the last firearm I did some mods on. Only catch was that I had to stay with the gun during the process due to local laws. To test the pc I dunked a coated bolt in hoppes for 3 days the finish held and has held up perfectly so far.

duracoat, no pre heating involved, easy to use, levels its self out, and doesnot require heat to cure. wide range of colors. dry to the touch in less than 1 hour, assemble in 24 hours, no blasting needed, and about the same price as gunkote.

Keep in mind there are a TON of discussions on the pros/cons of different coatings on the finishing sub-forum here. All of them have merit and will look good. A good question to ask yourself is how much of a safe queen will your rifle be. Whatever you do, preparation is 90% of the job! If you haven't spent the time degreasing and prepping the metal you will get a poor finish.

If you're going to *exactly* reproduce a factory finish or desire a "from the field" look, then a cheaper coating will be suitable, and will more readily give you that "worn on the edges" look. At one time Tantal was recommending the Dupli-color 1200 black (engine paint) for a match to the Saiga black. My experiences with engine paint over the years is that it is more brittle and tends to flake easier than epoxy paints, but this may not be a problem - seems like half the factory finishes I've removed have simply washed off with kerosene, acetone, or some other solvents.

If you're all about safe queens then you really do need the epoxy-based coatings as they are almost impervious to scrapes and dings. The best finish I've ever put on guns has come from Duracoat. I used the HK semi-gloss black by itself, or mixed half the HK Black and half their basic Flat Black and had a very good results.

also, a dark grey blueing would look good. birchwood casey sells a "perma blue" kit you can probably pick up for around $15. but it will take alot of prep work to polish the metal. a lighter park job will also look killer.

i just finished a saiga 308 and decided to mix some titanium silver and hk black duracoat together. turned out good. only problem, the rough casting/machining on the front sight and other parts show more with the lighter color.

with the roughness of the finishing of a ak variant, i would go with something that utalizes blasting as a surface prep. it might hide some of the rough machining and casting better.